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The $1,200 DIY Gunsmithing Machine

An anonymous reader writes: You may recall Cody Wilson as the man behind the world's first 3D-printed gun. He built a company behind the ideals of DIY gun-making, and now he's come back with another device: the "Ghost Gunner," a CNC mill designed to create the lower receiver of an AR-15 rifle. "That simple chunk of metal has become the epicenter of a gun control firestorm. A lower receiver is the body of the gun that connects its stock, barrel, magazine and other parts. As such, it's also the rifle's most regulated element. Mill your own lower receiver at home, however, and you can order the rest of the parts from online gun shops, creating a semi-automatic weapon with no serial number, obtained with no background check, no waiting period or other regulatory hurdles. Some gun control advocates call it a "ghost gun." Selling that untraceable gun body is illegal, but no law prevents you from making one." Wilson's goal is still to render government gun regulation useless, even as debate rages on banning this kind of manufacturing.

11 of 651 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This device is not new or interesting by jandrese · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think the barrel and chamber aren't tracked because they are wear items that might be replaced on a gun. The receiver is like the frame on the car. You could build one a lot easier than you could build your own engine from scratch, but it's also the part that you're least likely to replace on the vehicle.

    If this takes off (which I kind of doubt outside of the fringe), you could expect the government to start regulating replacement chambers and barrels as well. I would expect it to have the opposite effect that Cody Wilson is intending.

    However, this just delays the inevitable. As home manufacturing improves over time, it will eventually be cheap and easy to make your own gun at home, at which point the Genie is out of the bottle. About the only thing left would be strict regulation of primers and maybe gunpowder itself.

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.
  2. Re:the solution: by mi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But in the mind of libertarian nutball Cody Wilson

    Instead of calling people names, why don't you and yours simply campaign to abolish the Second Amendment altogether? If we read the First the same way we are told to read the Second, our freedom of speech too would be limited to "petitioning the government" — and only for "redress of grievances". Oh, and only after a "cool-down" period.

    "Assault firearms" my foot — you can't even carry a freaking sword or brass-knuckles in many parts of the country nowadays. If only the British kept those blades away from Patrick Henry and his "nutball" cohorts!

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    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  3. Honestly, rifles are not the problem by gurps_npc · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I am liberal and in favor of gun control. But long guns are not the problem. They

    1) Are too big to easily hide, attracting the attention of cops. So crooks don't like to carry them.

    2) Are too big to easily commit suicide with.

    3) Are too big for young children to easily play with.

    As a direct result of this, long guns kill less than 500 people a year.

    Pistols, however, are used by criminals, by people committing suicide, and by kids playing around with them. As a direct result, over 30,000 people die every year after being shot with a pistol.

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    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    1. Re:Honestly, rifles are not the problem by Flammon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yes, yes and yes! Once I realized that "anti-gun" meant no guns for the good guys and guns for the bad guys, I became pro-gun. The debate isn't about less guns for bad guys, they already have guns and always will. It's about letting the good guys can have guns.

  4. Banning CNC would be utterly pointless by McGregorMortis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    An AK-47 receiver made out of a rusty shovel:

    http://thechive.com/2012/12/06...

    Perhaps the problem is that the receiver is the legally-controlled part of the gun. Everything else is spare parts. Making receivers is easy now.

    I'm no expert, but it seems to me that making a barrel is the hardest part. Why isn't the barrel the controlled part?

  5. Re:ugh by bigfinger76 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually, the "gun show loophole" has been shown not to be the problem as only a small percentage of guns obtained this way end up being used in crimes. And all FFLs at all gun shows in the US must "background check". The "loophole" you're trying to sniff out here are private sales.

  6. Re:the solution: by butalearner · · Score: 4, Interesting

    More importantly, he does what he does to point out absurdity.

    He thinks he is pointing out absurdity of gun control laws, but that's because he is (or appears to be, I don't actually know him) emotionally invested into getting rid of all gun control laws. Objectively, though, he's pointing out pretty valuable information regarding future illegal weapons manufacturing. Gun control advocates should be very pleased, because now governments have a much more urgent reason to think about how the law might work with 3D-printed weapons. He's the gray hat hacker of gun control.

  7. Re:This device is not new or interesting by mariox19 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    People with a need for untraceable guns [...]

    People, like, the police, for instance?

    My uncle, long retired from the NYPD and now dead several years, told me a long time ago that smart cops carry a "throwaway." A throwaway is a small handgun that cannot be traced back to you. Should you happen to shoot dead a denizen of the 'hood you work in, and the shooting might be deemed questionable, you take your throwaway and plant it on the dead guy. Then, there's no question about why you had to shoot him.

    Now, I realize we're only 3-D printing AR-15's at this point, and no one can keep one of those in his sock; but one day all sorts of guns will be able to be printed. The cops will be just as happy about this as the mafiosi and cartel kingpins.

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    quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.

  8. Big Deal.... by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Both of my AR's were obtained without a background check. I bought both from a private seller. 100% legal.
    Honestly this is all mental masterbation. You can easily build an AK47 lower without a milling machine and just some hand tools and a old shovel.

    In fact.... here you go....

    http://www.northeastshooters.c...

    The AR15 is not the best platform in the world, it's just popular. if you really want a gun that can take insane abuse and easily built with hand tools.... AK47 is the gun to build to be subversive..

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    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  9. Re: the solution: by nbauman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It is about race.

    Do you know where the old gun control laws in this country came from? In 1966, the Black Panthers started carrying guns in public. In 1967, the California legislature passed a law against carrying guns in public, which was signed by Governor Ronald Reagan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    The fastest way to get gun control today would be for the black demonstrators to carry guns every time a black man gets shot by a cop.

  10. Re:the solution: by smooth+wombat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Considering people don't read the 2nd Amendment correctly, there shouldn't be a problem with misreading the 1st.

    Both in words and actions the Colonial government required people to register with their local authorities whether or not they had a gun so they could be called up to suppress insurrection or protect the state (PA has that written explicitly in its Constitution. Article 1, section 20. Also, go read The Federalist Papers where calling up the militia, using their own guns, was mentioned several times by Madison, the guy who wrote the Constitution).

    Yet apparently what was good enough for the originating government isn't good enough for us so people read only the part of the Amendment they want to read and ignore the rest.

    Pretty convenient, huh?

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    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower